Catherine: Hello, I’m Catherine and welcome to Question and Answer of the Week.

Helping me answer your questions today is Feifei.

Feifei: 大家好，歡迎收聽(tīng)《你問(wèn)我答》。

Catherine: Our question today comes from Way, who has a question about two very similar words.

Feifei: 是的，Way 的問(wèn)題關(guān)于兩個(gè)看起來(lái)很相似而且非常容易搞混的詞。咱們來(lái)聽(tīng)聽(tīng)他的具體問(wèn)題吧。

Catherine: Yes, let’s hear the question.

Question

I am not sure about the difference between 'historical' and 'historic'. Could you please tell me how to use the two words correctly? Thank you.

Feifei: Way 想知道 historic 和 historical 這兩個(gè)詞的區(qū)別。首先，這兩個(gè)詞都和歷史有關(guān)。

Catherine: Yes, absolutely. They are both connected with history, and they are both adjectives. We can talk about historic places, and we can talk about historical places too.

Feifei: Historic 和 historical 都是形容詞，而且都有“歷史的”意思，那區(qū)別到底是什么呢？

Catherine: OK. Well, historical is a very general word. Any single thing, or group of things, that are related to history, can be described as historical. Here are two people talking about their travel plans.

Example

Man 1: We’ll spend the afternoon visiting the historical buildings in the old town. Then we’ll have lunch.

Man 2: How long does it take to get there?

Man 1: Nearly 4 hours. Don’t forget to bring something to read.

Man 2: I will – I’ve got a couple of historical novels I want to finish.

Man 1: Oh, historical fiction? I like that too.

Feifei: 上面的例子里單詞 historical 指的是和歷史有關(guān)的或是歷史上出現(xiàn)過(guò)的人或事。比如說(shuō)，歷史建筑 historical buildings, 歷史小說(shuō) historical fiction. 好，我們?cè)賮?lái)看一下單詞 historic.

Catherine: Right. So while historical is used very generally, the word historic has a very specific sense. We say something is historic when we want to emphasise that it is very special, important, unique or unforgettable in our history.

Feifei: 單詞 historic 常用來(lái)表示歷史上一件難忘的、有名的、重要的、獨(dú)特的東西。那重大事件呢？

Catherine: Both! We can talk about historic days, historic meetings, historic places, historic moments. Here’s a tour guide to give us some examples.

Example

And here are the steps from which the president made his historic announcement. And at the top of the steps, the historic silver gate is over 400 years old. It’s the only one of its kind that survives today.

Feifei: 上面例子中提到了一個(gè)歷史性的公告 a historic announcement, 還有發(fā)表這個(gè)公告的地點(diǎn)一扇歷史性的銀門(mén) a historic silver gate. 好了，我們來(lái)總結(jié)一下這兩個(gè)單詞的使用方法：在使用這兩個(gè)詞的時(shí)候，記住: historical 來(lái)描述一般的歷史事件或與歷史有關(guān)的東西；用 historic 來(lái)形容一個(gè)具體的歷史事件。

Catherine: Yes. Historical is general, historic is specific. Or you can look at it this way: if something is historical, it happened in the past. If something is historic, it happened in the past and it’s very important.

Feifei: 明白了。區(qū)分這兩個(gè)詞的最好方法就是記住 historical 描述過(guò)去發(fā)生的一件事情；用historic 描述過(guò)去發(fā)生的、并且非常重要的事件。

Catherine: Let’s hope that listening to this programme turns out to be a historic moment for our questioner, Way.

Feifei: 哈哈。今天具有歷史意義的一期節(jié)目講解了 historic 和 historical 兩詞的區(qū)別。 如果你在學(xué)習(xí)中遇到任何問(wèn)題，歡迎你發(fā)郵件告訴我們你的問(wèn)題，我的郵箱是questions.chinaelt@bbc.co.uk. 感謝收聽(tīng)，下次再會(huì)。

Catherine: Goodbye!

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（來(lái)源：BBC英語(yǔ)教學(xué) 編輯：Julie）